Timeless
by Metronomeblue
Summary: Captain Swan, Grace/August If Rumple had never become the Dark One and the curse had never been cast, the whole timeline would fall apart. So now Emma, happily dating Killian, has to go back in time to convince Hook and Milah to run away together. Grace and August, the same age now that the curse didn't happen, are helping to fight a tyrant king, and all four must make choices
1. Rising

Part One: Rising

A/N: Something i should clear up: Grace and August are the same age. Because no curse= same age.

"You're sure you'll be alright?" Killian rubbed his hand and hook up and down Emma's arms, more concerned than she'd ever seen him.

"I'll be fine, Kill, I'll have you, remember?" Emma smiled sadly, catching his hook and running a thumb over the tip.

"Not the way I am now," he whispered, looking down in guilt. She gripped his hook more tightly and lifted her other hand to his face, tilting it so he looked into her eyes.

"You'll still be you," Emma said, smiling at him in an inside joke, "and I think we've established that I can handle you."

"I know. I know," he leaned in to press a kiss to her forehead, arm reaching more tightly around her waist,"and I know I'd never hurt you, but this is me before... Before many things and I'm- I'm a bit afraid of how you'll see me," he pressed his face into her hair, mumbling his last words, "after this."

Emma pulled back, hands on his shoulders.

"You idiot. I love you, but oh my god, you're an idiot." Emma raised an eyebrow and smacked the side of Killian's head. "Kill. I know who you were. I know who you are. I know you." Emma smiled wryly down at his hook. "And I thought you knew me. Do you really think I'd give up on you so easily?Though I'm a little afraid," she confessed.

"What of?" He asked.

"I'm afraid I won't be able to convince you to help me." Emma took a deep breath. "I mean, we've never met, and you're 300 years younger and I just-" Killian cut her off with a kiss.

"True love, Emma," he breathed when he broke away. "I would do anything for you, and the fact that we've never met won't change that. Nothing can." Emma rolled her eyes.

"You do realize that sounds ridiculous, right?"

"It's true," he shrugged."I have faith that my undying love for you will be able to cross time and space and make me fall in love with another woman." He was teasing, yet there was a thread of truth in his words.

This had to work. Nothing else had, and if this didn't nothing would.

Henry ran forward, crashing into Emma's waist.

"You're coming back, right? You're not staying over there as long as last time?" Emma hugged him closer, smiling sadly.

"No. No, Henry, I should be gone less than a week. I'll be back soon. I promise." Emma ran her hands through Henry's hair and looked back up at Killian. "I promise."

Snow and David each hugged Emma, teary-eyed and despairing.

"You can do this," Snow whispereed to Emma. "Only you."

Regina cleared her throat, and they all busily managed to make themselves look hopeful.

"It's time." Regina, beneath her steel, looked nervous. Even the Evil Queen was threatened by time.

Even the fairest of them all would have to fall.

Emma took the necklace from Regina. Killian stepped behind her to clasp it around her neck. As soon as the chain touched her skin, golden strands of mist began sizzling up like smoke. Cool and soft, it wove up around her, strands coalescing until they formed a golden curtain separating Emma from the world. Soon enough she couldn't even feel Killian's hands against the back of her neck.

Then all feeling faded into smoke.

When she woke up, later, she was curled up in the corner of what appeared to be a tavern. Or maybe they were called pubs? Emma didn't really care. She was a little busy saving the world at the moment.

"Hi," she began, walking up to the counter. "Seen any pirate ships lately?"

When Emma reached the docks, she faltered. She knew Killian would help her eventually. He had to. But it was a horrible thing she was asking him to do, and she had no clue how he'd react to her asking. Well she did. In her world, he'd have done it in an instant. But in this one, this time... She really had no idea.

"I'm looking for killian Jones," she called up to the men on the ship. They leered at her, clearly thinking a blonde in a leather jacket could only be there for one reason. She smiled back mockingly, adjusting her stance so the sunlight would flash on the sword at her waist.

"And why, Milady, might you be looking for me?" He waltzed over the gangplank, coat swirling and grin brilliant, and for a moment Emma couldn't breathe.

Because this was Killian, her Killian, younger and more innnocent and if not happy then at least not unhappy. And she was going to change every word in that sentence by the end of this.

"Well I'm in need of your help," Emma began, crossing her arms and playing along and cringing because this was how it would have been before. The two of them arguing and bickering and bantering and loving every second.

"Oh? What sort of... Help might you be in need of?" He smirked, stepping closer. His eyes flicked from her face to her sword and back.

"Not that sort," she snorted, pushing him back with a hand on his chest. "I need you to come with me."

"Come with you where?" He raised an eyebrow. "You see, I'm not used to following... More of a leader, myself, love." Emma smirked back, and with one hand on his left wrist, she pulled him forward with her, directly through the jagged crack in the wall behind her. They emerged exactly three hundred years later, the building in front of her more dilapidated, falling apart. Rotten to the core.

"What the bloody hell was that?!" Killian shouted, thumping his hand ineffectively against the crack. The whole building shuddered, and Emma caught his hand before he began a second assault on the poor shack.

"Time travel. Given to me by an old friend of yours." The distaste in Emma's voice wasn't harsh or ice cold so much as it was the dead of Russian winter. Killian tilted his head.

"No friend of mine uses magic. And certainly no magic like that!" He cursed, turning in a circle to slam his fist again against teh wall. It cracked further and Emma rolled her eyes.

"That's not helping anyone, Jones." It was hard not to call him Hook when she was this annoyed with him. Shame he hadn't gotten to that part yet.

"Well where the hell are we?" He asked, spinning to look at her.

"Look around you."

"Gods," he breathed, taking in the empty sea, the rotting wooden platform that used to be the dock. He visibly flinched once he saw the ships. "What happened here?"

Emma stepped up next to him.

"They burned the ships. Or tried to, anyway. Some wouldn't take the fire, so they just killed everyone onboard." She spoke emotionlessly, pitiless for this man whose whole world had just changed.

"Who did?" he demanded, "Who are you? What am I doing here?"

Emma sighed.

"Those aren't all questions I can answer right now." She frowned thoughtfully. "I'll tell you what you're doing here when I'm able." He opened his mouth to argue and hse cut him off. "My name is Emma Swan, and this land used to belong to a man named Dominic. Where I took you from... now it belongs to King Allen." Her frown deepened.

"What do you mean 'where you took me from'? And when you said time travel..." he was breathing heavily, angry and confused and shocked. "When is this?"

"Three hundred years in your future." He scoffed, disbelieving and believing immediately all at once. "Come with me," Emma called, turning to walk away from the broken docks.

He followed.

Emma found an inn somewhere in town. The occupants were silent, suspicious. The owners were steely and cautious. Nobody smiled, nobody talked, nobody made eye contact. Killian was suddenly reminded of the taverns and inns in his time. He was abruptly quite grateful for the rulers he stole from, glad that at least they never did this to their subjects.

Glad they had never done this to him.

Sequestered in a room, he sat opposite Emma, each on one side, claiming their own of the two beds. He eyed her warily, an ice-cold tigress upon her throne, while she watched him like some curious bird that had landed in front of her with a broken wing.

"Why did this happen?" he finally asked, folding his hands in front of himself. Emma drew in a breath, letting it out with a resigned expression.

"Rumplestiltskin. The Dark One. Only he never was, now. I mean..." She moved her mouth, trying to form the words. "There's a woman, Cora. He trained her in magic. he needed someone to cast a curse for him. Her daughter, Regina, cast the curse to punish my mother. It sent entire kingdoms to a different world. Rumplestiltskin wanted to find his son there, but... They had no memory, no inkling of who they were. They couldn't even leave the town. I was sent ahead. In an enchanted wardrobe. I never knew, not until I was twenty-eight." She folded, unfolded her hands. Tense and sad, she fidgeted with her fingers. "I broke the curse, because of my son. And then... Then Cora told Ruplestiltskin he could have a normal life. A life with his son and..." She looked at Killian. "His wife." Emma swallowed, looking back down at her hands. "The entire timeline unraveled. Without Rumplestiltskin as the Dark One, my parents never met, Cora never had a daughter, and... So many things that were supposed to happen... never happened." She took a deep breath. "And so many that were never supposed to happen did."

"What do I have to do with any of this?" Killian asked, and Emma immediately retreated back into her icy shell.

"I can't tell you yet." She got up off the bed and stood up, straightening her jacket. "All I can say is that he won't fix it and you can." She turned, about to leave the room.

"What's so bad, anyway?" He asked, baiting her. "The world looks fine to me." She practically threw herself at him, pinning him to the wall with trembling hands.

"Don't you dare!" She hissed, "You have no idea what he's done!" He could feel her breath across his cheeks, almost nose-to-nose with her. Then she pulled away, pushing him back into the wall as she did. "Don't you dare." She repeated angrily, though much more calmly than before.

He let himself slide down to slump against the wall as she left, leaning his head back to rest.

"What've I gotten myself into?" he asked the world at large. "Or don't you care?"

No reply.

"Of course not," he sighed.

The next morning he woke to find her in the bed across the room, golden hair spilling over the pillow in lazy curls and eyes shut in a far more relaxed expression than any he'd seen on her face before.

He dressed and ate before she woke up, and when she came downstairs it was to find him leaning against the doorframe.

"Hello again," she said.

"I suppose so." He pushed away to follow her, still miffed from their little fight the night before. "You never did tell me what I had to do," he hinted, hoping she'd slip up.

But not so, he soon found.

"I said I wouldn't. And I won't until you promise to help me." She turned a corner and he had to walk a bit faster to catch up to her.

"Why do you need me to help you?" he called after her.

"Because only you can." she called back.

"But why?" He caught up to her and she turned around.

"Why do you even care?" She spat.

"I have a soft spot for pretty girls." He whispered mockingly, trying to ignore how quickly they had gotten closer. They were hardly three inches apart. Hearing his reply, she scoffed and stepped away.

"If that's the only reason, then go waste your time on someone else." Emma said acidically.

"I'm not leaving!" he said in exasperation. "I can't! Three hundred years, remember? And besides, I'm curious now." He smiled, tilting his head. "I can never turn down a challenge."

"I'd despair if you did," Emma smirked, continuing down the street. "Come along then!"

He followed.

"So where are we going?" He asked her, "I mean, we are going somewhere, right?" She stopped, letting him come level with her before pushing him through an open door.

"I am." She closed and locked the door. "You're staying here. Sorry, but I have to do something." He stood at the window, agape, until she was out of sight.

Then he methodically picked the lock, climbed onto the roof, and followed her.

She followed a winding path to a large house that looked more like it belonged in the victorian era than a fairy tale. Killian grumbled but clung to the shingles anyway, hanging over the second-story window.

"Grace, hi," Emma hugged the woman in greeting, then the man next to her.

"So?" The woman, Grace, crossed her arms and bit her lip. "Is he going to help us?"

"Probably." Emma sat down. "He's curious. Challenged. But I don't think he believes me."

"He might. Who knows? I mean, if he is who you say he is... The others won't like it, but as long as he'll help the rebellion I don't think they'll mind too much." The man entered the conversation, pacing the length of the room. The redhead who'd opened the door put a hand out to touch the man's.

"August. Pacing." She smiled fondly, and he grinned ruefully back.

"Sorry." August sat down as Grace stood up. "Grace?" He asked, following her concernedly with his eyes.

"Shhhhh..." She crossed to the window, pushing it up and letting the curtains flow out on either side of her. She hopped up on the windowsill, Emma and August watching in silent curiosity. She reached up with one arm, steadying herself on the windowframe, and then quickly threw herself backward, gripping Killian's coat lapels in her fists.

"Killian?" Emma asked, equal parts shocked and angry.

"Eavesdropper," August scoffed as Grace shut and bolted the window.

"And proudly so!" Killian laughed, slumped against the wall.

"Oh my g- Can we not do this? Please?" Emma huffed, smacking Killian's shoulder with the back of her hand.

"I promise I'll help you do whatever it is you want me to do to save you." Killian swore, only half-serious, "Now please, can you just tell em what I'm supposed to do?"

"Not yet." Emma shook her head and left the room, Grace following her. August hoisted him up by the arm and promptly tied him to a chair.

"This seems oddly familiar," Killian mused later, as Emma stood disapprovingly in front of him. "Have we done this before?"

"The tied-up thing?" Emma smirked. "I couldn't possibly say." Grace snickered behind her, biting her lip and smiling. August shook his head.

"Anyway, can you let me go now? My hands are losing their feeling." Killian said petulanty, "Especially the left one."

Emma eyed the aforementioned hand critically.

"Losing feeling in your left hand?" Grace grinned. "You have no idea." Killian scowled at her and she made a face at him.

"Come on," August drawled. "Can we just get this done?"

"The last time I heard that, I had a really fantastic time." Killian said to nobody in particular. When nobody said anything, he added, "I mean sex. I had really fantastic sex." Emma buried her face in her hands and August rolled his eyes. Grace looked down at Killian's crotch for a second, then back up at his face, raising an eyebrow.

"Just untie him, Grace." Emma rested her head against the wall.

Grace shrugged shamelessly.

Downstairs, August was showing them the headquarters of the rebellion.

"So this is your grand hideaway?" Killian asked, rubbing at his wrists. Grace scowled at him and he made a face at her.

"It's kind of all we can do at the moment," She said icily, stalking past him to the painting. "What with the whole bloody world being ruled by King Allen."

"You never did explain that to me. How'd one king gain so much land? And beyond that, how'd he last three hundred years?" Killian asked, bewildered.

"He found a genie," Grace explained. "On a beach. Gave himself unlimited wishes, eternal life, and an unbeatable champion."

"Unbeatable? Unlimited? Eternal?" Killian snickered. "Making up for something, is he?"

Grace cracked a smile. Emma, who'd been silent thus far, let out a chuckle.

"Who knows? There are so many rumors nobody actually knows the truth. Last one I heard said he was a shoemaker's son, shamed by a bunch of elves for being ungrateful." Grace picked up a knife and shoved it into a crack in the wall. "But I don't think that one's true."

The crack widened, light pouring out for a moment, the wider it got the brighter the light. They all shielded their eyes except Grace, who stared unblinking into it's depths. When the light faded, they found themselves looking at a large hole in the wall.

Grace and August were already climbing through, so Emma just sent a look to Killian and followed her.

He tilted his head, wondered once more what the hell he was doing, and crawled through.

On the other side was a cave, about as big as one of the larger ballrooms he'd snuck into as a child, hiding behind potted plants and under ladies' skirts. It was not nearly as clean, though.

There were outcroppings and dips all over, and most held books or people. The rebellion seemed to consist mainly of books and their readers. Though the weapons neatly stacked throughtout wouldn't quite hurt their cause, either...

"Grace! August!" An older woman strode over to them. White hair, spectacles, crossbow... She was formidable, and Killian knew instinctally, in charge.

"Granny," Grace nodded, "What news of the North?" The two walked off purposefully, discussing tactics and formations and battle plans, while August gravitated towards a cricket that seemed to hold his particular attention.

"So, this is their mighty rebellion?" Killian asked Emma, looking up at the ceiling of the cave. She followed his eyes, staring in wonderment at the books dangling from strings nailed into the stone. He, meanwhile, dropped his gaze to more earthly creatures. He traced her throat with his eyes, the fine line of her jaw and the way she smiled when she caught sight of a flying horse hidden in a corner.

The way she suddenly tensed and grew somber the moment a young man walked into the cave.

"Who's that?" the man asked, nodding to Killian.

"Killian Jones," Emma replied, "Friend of mine." The man nodded, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder before walking past. "I'm going to see Ruth later," she added, turning.

"I'll be sure to tell her!" he called back. Emma smiled sadly.

"He's my uncle, you know." She said quietly to Killian. "My dad's twin brother." Killian looked at her for a moment.

"What happened to your father, here?" He asked softly.

"He died." And the walls came back up. "He died in a fire set by Allen's men."

Killian opened his mouth to apologize.

"I have a son you know." Emma said abruptly. "Henry. I had to give him up when i had him. I've only just got him back." She pressed her fingers to her lips. "I can't lose him again." This said, she took a breath and walked away.

Killian watched her leave and thought he wanted to make her happy.


	2. Conflict

A/N: Okay, so, some confusion earlier, but jsyk, Grace and August are the same age here, via the-curse-that-never-was... never-wasing, I guess.

Part Two: Conflict

Killian wnadered a bit after Emma disappeared. He was still bothered by how completely distant she'd been to him, especially after she'd ripped him from his place in time.

The least she could do was show him around.

"Killian, right?" The red-headed woman, Grace, he thought her name was, had snuck up behind him. "Emma's speaking with someone. She'll be back later. Would you like to look around?" He nodded.

"So remind me. Why is everyone hiding from this mysterious King Allen, anyhow?" Killian rubbed his hands together, as though they were cold down here, in the heart of the land.

"You really don't know, do you?" Grace smirked bitterly. "You resist, even the tiniest bit? He kills you. No questions asked. If the police say so, you die." She snapped her fingers. "Like my dad."

Emma still wasn't quite used to the jagged stone beneath her feet, but the longer she was here, the easier it got.

"Hello Cora," she said, hoisting herself onto the stone shelf that served for a room.

The old woman smiled, and Emma never failed to be startled by the lines and grey hairs that hadn't been there when she'd had magic.

"Hello dear. I've been spinning again," Cora pointed out, as though she was a child seeking approval.

"I can see. Any luck?" The old woman hadn't yet been able to spin straw to gold, but Emma wouldn't give up. The resistance needed gold, needed it badly, and if Cora could help them, then they'd never have to steal from anyone.

"Not yet. I did get some rather nice copper, though." Emma nodded and rested a hand on her shoulder.

"Keep trying. You'll get there soon."

Getting down from Cora's perch was easier than climbing up, Emma had found, and bumping into Killian and Grace at the bottom was certainly convenient.

"Hello," Emma straightened her back and forced an icy calm into her voice.

"Hey." Killian looked up the rocky outcropping, and Emma quirked an eyebrow.

"Curious?" He nodded in reply, eyes still focused upwards. "Our resident witch-in-training is up there trying to spin gold. You'll get along fine." Her voice brooked no arguments as she was reminded of what had happened the last time Cora and Killian had worked together.

"Lovely." The pirate smirked and began scrambling nimbly up the rock. Emma turned to Grace.

"Maleficent?" Grace nodded, breaking into a smile.

"She'll help us. As soon as you can get there." Emma nodded soberly.

"I'm going to tell him."

"Everything? Even...?"

"Not all at once, but yes. Even that." Emma was resolute. "I'll start with the simpler things. The curse, Henry... I'll do that tonight."

And she found the perfect oppurtunity, pulling him up the huge rock outside the cave to see the stars.

"So," began Killian, "Tell me about yourself."

"Okay." Emma thought for a moment. "I'm the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming?" Killian stared back as though waiting for her to finish speaking. "And I dated Rumplestiltskin's son, Neal, and had a kid named Henry, and punched him in the face." At Killian's confusion she amended, "Neal, not Henry. And I gave him up for adoption," and when Killian looked even more confused," I let another family raise him because I couldn't. And then when he was ten, he found me. And he brought me to Storybrooke, where I found my parents. Only they were cursed, and couldn't remember who they were. And so I had to break the curse, and I did, and now we're a family."

Killian stared blankly at her.

"Shut up. It's hard to explain," Emma laughed as Killian shook his head, bewildered.

"I can see that," he snorted, "but you told me all of that- well I think you did- back in the inn. Tell me about you. Your favorite color, your happiest memory, your greatest wish. Why you kidnapped me..."

"Hey!" Emma smacked him over the head, smirking. "I'm not telling you that. Not any of that!"

"Tell me how you know me." His small smile was genuine, his hands hanging in his lap.

She reached out and held his right hand.

"When I met you you only had one hand." She turned his palm up, fingers tracing his lifeline, his fingers, lingering on his fingertips with gentle touch.

He felt a sudden urge to lean forward, so he did.

He reached up with his left hand, drawing her face to his. Her breath fanned out from slightly parted lips, and he smiled as he pressed his mouth to hers. She returned the kiss softly, as gentle now as she had been cold before. Their twined hands lay forgotten between them as he deepened the kiss.

And then, with a start, her eyes snapped open and she pushed him violently back.

"No, I can't. I can't." Her voice was desperate, breathless, apologetic. She didn't want to pull away. He didn't care, he had an answer now.

"Is that who I am to you?" He asked furiously. Her eyes were wide and afriad and angry, and she just bit her lip and shook her head hopelessly. "Is it?" He was half in tears for what she might be and half ready to throttle her for all her unanswered questions.

She just stared coldly back, defiant as winter rain.

She walked away in silence.

He strode away from the rock full of fire and confusion. If he was to her what he thought, then why would she be so cold? why so cruel and pitiless and obscure? He found the tunnel and left for the docks. He'd find a ship somehow, sail far away, far far away. If she wouldn't take him home, then he'd find a way to get there.

When he did reach the docks, though, he saw the winding, pitch-black masts, reaching lopsidedly towards the sky, and he was reminded that this wasn't the world he knew. There was no freedom here, not on land, not on sea, not in sky.

His only hope was to find out what Emma wanted.

"You can't leave, you know." It was that woman, Grace. "Not until she explains."

"Well in case you hadn't noticed, she's not doing much explaining, now is she?" Killian was long past caring. All he wanted was to sail away, as he had been doing for as long as he could remember. Back when he was Peter, before that, when he was James, and long into his life, when he was Killian or Jones or any number of names.

"She's not explaining because you're not listening." Killian turned around to argue, but no witty quip or argument srprang to his mind. "Just stay until she explains. She'll take you back no matter what, but you need to understand first."

Killian nodded, before climbing the gangplank of his ship.

"What've they done to you, old girl?" He muttered, stroking up the mast with cold-pale fingers, the ash falling over him like snow. "What've they done to me?"

The water was frozen around him, and his ship was burned.

No escaping this time.

The next morning, he woke up to find Emma leaning over the side of the Jolly Roger, blonde hair falling like ribbons on either side of her face.

"I'm not going until you listen to me." He smiled in response, laughing.

"I'd despair if you did." She smiled back.

"Come with me?" She reached out a hand, and he almost wanted to say no, just to throw the memory of the kiss back in her face, but he reached out and took it.

"An adventure?" he asked.

"Of a sort," she replied, leading him down from his ship of ice and ash.

The adventure she was leading him on seemed to end at a great stone fortress, heavily guarded and weather-worn.

"What is this place?" He squinted through the sun, instinctively searching out the weak points, unguarded towers and badly-placed archers.

"King Allen's castle," she said, picking her way through a group of stones poking up from the moss and grasses. "Taken in the seventy-third year of the ogre wars."

"Ogre wars? I heard about those. When did they end?" They're making small talk, but it isn't, not really. He really doesn't know, and she really wants to tell him.

"They didn't. Not really, anyway. Allen found a genie on a beach. He wished for the genie to do whatever he asked, no matter what." Emma looked up, too, watching a bird wheel in the air, blocking the sun and sky in turns. "He wished for infinite wishes and used the ogres to conquer the world." She pulled him on, past the first gate and towers.

"There was a couple who lived in the woods. Red was- she was a werewolf, and her husband was raised in the forest, abandoned by his parenst and raised by wolves. They were good together, a family of wolves and werewolves and half-wolves, and they were happy." She swallowed and led him past a shattered catapult, grown over with moss and dirt and ivy.

"They stood against him, summoning the strength of the forests. Old magic, green and powerful and ancient. He destroyed them." Killian opened his mouth to ask why or maybe how, or when, but Emma plowed on, hand clenching tighter to his. "There was a man, a man with a magic hat who loved his daughter very much. He was executed in the town square, in front of her, and when his head was on a pike on the castle walls they threw her to the mercy of the wilds." They passed burnt wooden houses and crushed fences. "Her name was Grace, and she wasn't the first or the last."

She stopped at the back of the castle, a cliff jutting out over the water. She had never let go of his hand, and she now drew him to look over the edge.

"Everyone I love, my friends, my family, my son..." She stopped herself from adding 'you'. "They're all dead. Or dying, or they never existed. My parents? True love?" She scoffed, shaking her head. "They used to say they'd always find each other, taht nothing could stand in their way so long as they had each other. Only in this world, they never met. My father grew up a poor shepherd, and he died in a fire. My mother grew up a princess, married to a man she hated. Nobody can be happy here, not anymore." She was close to tears now, but she wiped them away angrily.

"Grace and August are going to fight tomorrow. They're going to buy us time while we run." The bitterness in her voice stopped him from making a comment about how cowardly running away would be. "One more day." She said finally. "Just wait one more day and I'll tell you why you're here."

"I'll wait however long I have to," he said quietly. 


	3. Climax

Chapter Three: Climax

When Emma said 'buy us time', Killian had thought twelve, maybe twenty people.

This was an army. The people from under the mountain, the refugees and fighters and angry little people. They had come out from under their mountain and they were furious. They spanned as far as the eye could see, that one with a picaxe this one with a saber, the next with a torch.

And at their head, the puppet and the orphan.

"Be safe," Grace said, hugging Emma goodbye.

"Good luck," she replied with a tight smile.

"No, you'll need it more than me." Despite her assurances, Killian didn't miss the way her hand tangled with August's or how white her knuckles were.

"Cora." Emma stepped over to the old woman. "Cora, do you remember what I told you about hearts?" Grace turned sharply to look. Cora nodded. "Today, I want you to take as many of them as you can. Don't smash them, just tell them to go to sleep until you say otherwise." Cora nodded again, a wide, blithe smile on her face.

"Killian!" Emma called him over, wrapping a black scarf around her neck. "It's time." He nodded in reply, pulling away from his marveling.

"Goodbye." He smiled fondly at Grace, stubborn and loyal as she was, and shook hands with August, her strong, wooden other half. "Farewell."

And they left.

The fairies rose from their places in line, forming ranks and brandishing sharpened wands.

"Ready?" August asked Grace, turning to look at her. She nodded, light burning in her eyes.

"Always and ever." She drew an arrow from the quiver at her back, and spinning, fired it at the walls.

Almost en masse, the fairies launched themselves after that arrow. The guards hardly noticed at first, only worrying when their blood was already wetting their fingers.

The dwarves assembled under the mountain, picking away pieces of the foundation. Chipping away this support and that column. Bit by bit, the castle was theirs.

When the drawbridge dropped and ogres began pouring out, Grace didn't worry.

Maybe she should have.

Emma and Killian had made good time. They had met Grace and August and Emma's army at dawn, leaving the castle not long after. It must have been midday, and they were at the border of Allen's land. In the time between Killian's childhood and now, Allen had erected a long, weaving ivory wall, built not of stone or wood, but of bones and sand. The guard towers were made obvious by the curtains of clothing hanging in long streams down each side.

"Where'd he get the bones?" Killian whispered to Emma, wary of the many guards along the wall.

"Soldiers, rebels, ogres. Any dead thing is ordered brought to him, so he can steal their bones and clothes. He takes fur if he can get it." Emma seemed particularly saddened by the sight of a long, lovely red cloak sewn into a section of what seemed to be wolf pelts. "That hat..." Her forehead wrinkled, frown deepening in thought with a sudden idea.

"What hat?" Killian looked, but he didn't see any hats sewn into the long panels.

"Grace's father's hat. That guard's wearing it." Emma pointed down. "I wonder if he knows what it is."

"Probably not. Why do we want his hat?" But Emma was already halfway to the wall. Killian cursed and followed her.

She climbed quickly, he found, more quickly than he. Apparently all that practicing on the stone at the resistance camp was paying off. Hand after hand, foot, left, right, up up up, no, don't look down. He tried not to think of the poor things making up this wall eh was climbing, pretending the bones were wood, the gaps a ladder to the deck of his ship. He came face-to-face with a wolf skull, picked clean by both vultures and the wind.

Killian decided that if he ever met King Allen, he'd scratch his eyes out and then poison him. Maybe stab him a bit.

They made it to the top.

Grace should have been worried. Her army destroyed, August missing, ogres everywhere and only Jiminy Cricket for company. She should have been scared out of her wits.

She wasn't. She had been waiting for this since she was ten, and no tiny conscience was going to stop her.

"If you find August, tell him I love him, okay?" She smiled down at Jiminy, pressed a kiss to his head and dropped him into a jar. "Sorry." She shoved a length of rope over her shoulder and left the sealed glass jar in the mud.

He wasn't her conscience anyway.

"Well." Killian looked at Emma admiringly. They had, together, made short work of the guards on this sector of the wall, and Emma had snatched both hat and cloak from the wall's eerie, pale, clutches.

"What?" Her face crinkled, and he had to remind himself that he'd kissed her and she'd pushed him away. Obviously she wasn't interested. He had no right to think her face crinkling was adorable.

But it kind of was.

"Nothing, lass." She made a face at the nickname and he smirked.

"Come on then." She began the perilous descent down the other side of the wall. Hand over hand, foot below foot, don't look down.

He followed promptly if reluctantly.

"Where are we headed?" He called down, voice half-lost in the wind. Hand over hand. Foot below foot.

"You ever heard of Maleficent?" She yelled back at him.

Grace was alone. The ogres disappeared, the guards gone. The mist rising off of still-hot blood was foggy in the sea-cold air, and she could hardly see. She was spinning in circles, feet red with her comrades' blood, breathing it in, stepping in it, she was drowning in it.

Blood and ice and fog, she was drowning.

And alone.

So alone.

"So this Maleficent..." Killian asked, breathing rough in the desert sun. "She's a witch?"

"Yeah, and a dragon." Emma pulled the black scarf over her mouth and nose, keeping out the sand.

"A- a Dragon?!" Killian did a double take. "Do I even want to know?" Emma shook her head.

"Probably not." She looked up, pressing the cloth to her mouth with a hand. "We're here, anyway."

It was an odd feeling, looking up from beating sun and blinding sand to find yourself surrounded by trees in front of a huge lake.

"How-?" Killian looked from Emma to the lake and back again.

"Hat."

"Ah."

"So how are we getting across?" Killian was fairly sure he couldn't swim a lake that big. And even if he could, who knew what was in it?

"Boat." Emma was striding purposefully towards a small dinghy anchored to a pine tree.

"Small boat."Killian was doubtful of this 'boat'.

"Let's just hope it's stronger than it looks," Emma huffed, shoving it into the water. Killian snorted and helped her.

It was. While they were attacked twice by crocodiles (and Killian couldn't quite figure out why Emma was laughing so hard), the boat held out and they reached the other side fully intact.

"Wonderful," Killian snarked, peering up at the spire Maleficent had set home upon, "more climbing."

"Get over it, pretty boy," Emma snorted, pulling the scarf tightly around her neck. Killian smirked, his thoughts somewhere along the lines of 'she thinks I'm pretty', before he realized what that sounded like and promptly cleared his throat and frowned. Manly, yeah. he was manly.

"We climbed a sixty-foot beanstalk once, Jones, I'm sure you can handle this." Killian wondered about the beanstalk all the way to the top.

Where he found other things to worry about.

Like the dragon lady with the scepter.

Maleficent actually proved to be a courteous, if facetious, host, and she listened amiably to Emma's story, even the part where Emma killed her. ("Happens all the time, dear, don't worry about it.")

"So will you help us?" Emma bit her lip and fidgeted with her hands, and looked, for a short moment, like a very small, very nervous, little girl.

"You want me to help you recreate a timeline in which I am trapped as a mindless beast for thirty years and then murdered by you?" Emma shrugged apologetically.

"Of course I will. Where would you like to go?" Emma's smile would have put the sun to shame.

"The Jolly Roger, three hundred years ago. The day before he's going to leave for Kanampa." Maleficent smiled.

"Very particular."

"Time travel." Emma shrugged. Maleficent gestured that they were to stand up. Emma walked over closer to him, shoulder to shoulder, even. He felt their fingers brush, could smell green leaves faintly, and then there was a crash and he couldn't focus on any one thing at a time.

Maleficent was falling, sceptre scraping a long white line across the floor. There was blood seeping down her dress from a small wound in her side. When she fell to her knees, listing down to face the cold stone, he could see the arrow fletching poking out.

The witch raise her arm, dragged her sceptre, and he could see it in her eyes taht she was dying. But Emma's grip on his arm brought him back to the present, and Maleficent was screaming something and there was blue mist seeping from beneath their feet, and he could hear the archers nocking arrows to their bowstrings.

Instinctively, he grabbed Emma by the shoulder, pulling her down with him, but he was just a bit too late, there was blood leaking from somewhere near her neck, and he could see the arrow now, in the space between the side of her waist and her collarbone. She was lying in his arms and there was noise all around and there was thick red blood flowing over his hands and he had no clue what was going on, only that she wasn't safe and he needed Emma safe.

He could hear the ocean behind him, and he knew they were home. 


	4. Falling

Part Four: Falling

"That'll be a scar," Killian smirked at her from the doorway. Emma made a face at him as the wise woman examined her arrow wound.

"You're just sad you don't have one," she quipped back, grimacing as cold, shriveled fingers poked and prodded the red, angry line below her collarbone.

"You're just sad you do!" He sputtered finally, out of retorts for now. She watched as he walked out to enjoy the sunshine. The wise woman shrugged.

"I think it looks quite nice, actually."

Emma fidgeted with the bandage looping over and all around her wound. The wise woman had said she'd have a scar and that it would ache as time passed, but she found it a small price to pay for her life.

"Hey! Jones!" She nodded him over, and they set off back to his ship together. Maleficent's last magic had sent them to Killian's time, true, but several days before they were supposed to arrive.

"I think it's time I told you what you've got to do."

August hadn't been this worried about Grace since they were twelve. She'd nearly ripped her own throat out on a barbed wire fence.

He can still see the thin line of blood, arcing across her neck as her pulled her back.

This is different. He found Jiminy outside, shut up in a bottle. Apparently, Grace had taken advantage of Allen's disappearing army and decided to gain vengeance for her father.

The castle steps were smooth and lacquer-red with blood, and August climbed each one dreading the moment when he'd find out whose. The stairs were carved of grey granite, flecked with silver and pearl-white. At the bottom he could see stripes of stone, glimmering in the dawn's half-light. The further up he went, the darker and wider the stream of blood became, obscuring all the splendour of Allen's wealth.

August reached the top step slowly and hesitantly. With trembling fingers he drew aside a gauzy white curtain stretched across the doorway.

It was Allen dead there, white-gold crown set before his corpse, drenched in thick, half-dry blood. August breathed relief, pure and light for a moment, before he noticed a second figure, this one with washed-out red hair, quiet and serene in the windowframe.

"Grace?" She turned her head, just slightly, as though it required great effort, and smiled at him. He rushed forward, trying to reach her, but her head fell to the side of her chest, and he was too late.

His tears fell in the pool of red surrounding Allen, but they were lost in the blood and disappeared.

"Come on." Emma swooped past Killian, the coat she borrowed from him swirling around her ankles.

"So what am I supposed to do?" Getting no answer, Killian scoffed. "You said you were going to tell me!"

"I am. Just wait." He rolled his eyes, but kept a step behind her as she stalked purposefully down the worn wood of the docks. A black raven in his coat, he couldn't help thinking she'd never looked less like a swan than she did now.

"Two, three, Five, seven..." Emma was counting off the buildings under her breath, eyes moving quickly from face to face.

"A tavern? Lass, if you wanted to get drunk, I could do far better than this!" Killian seemed a bit affronted at this offense to his (rather large) rum supply.

"We're not here to get drunk, Killian," she rolled her eyes right back at him, "we're here to talk to someone." And without a further word, she swept into the shabby, salt-stained bar.

Killian grumbled a bit, glanced around to see if anyone was watching... And followed her.

The shack was crowded and wavery, films of grease and smoke obscuring both vision and smell. He wrinkled his nose, unaccustomed to such thick air after so long in the future, and before that at sea. Far at the back, he spotted a glimmer of gold and a smear in black that could only be Emma. He pushed through the crowd, making his way to her side.

There he found her speaking to a lovely, dark-haired woman whose smile seemed to light up the room.

"Killian! This is Milah." Emma smiled tightly, gesturing to the woman.

He glanced at her, confused as to why she mattered, but Emma merely nodded and said something about drinks. He didn't see her for the rest of the night, but he hardly noticed, so engaged was he in conversation with Milah.

She was so enamoured with his stories, her eyes lit up with a thousand lands she'd never seen before, and he could almost forget. A wide starry sky, hands clasped in trust, blonde hair beneath his fingers and warm lips against his... But when the dawn came, he found her sitting small and dark at the end of the dock.

Her back was to him, silhouetted against the silver-white sky, and the light danced through her hair and at the corners of her eyes.

She was the saddest and most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. By far the loneliest.

So he sat beside her.

"The day after tomorrow, you're going to sail away with her." Emma didn't even need to look to know it was him. They'd spent so much time together that she knew his walk, the rhythm of his heart, the timing of his breath.

"You'll steal her away from her husband, and for some ten years you'll be blissfully happy." Killian's heart nearly stopped in his chest. "You'll love her." Emma sniffed, and he noticed the brightness of tears her eyes.

"And then one day, when her husband is given a choice, he will make a deal. He will become something horrible, because he wants to protect his son. And he will become the most powerful user of magic in all the realms. He makes a curse. And he carefully puts that curse into place. And everything I've already told you about happens."

She laughed mirthlessly. "All because his wife couldn't convince him to run away and be happy with her. All because she convinced you."

"I-" Killian tried to speak, tried to find words through the frozen haze in his mind.

"But before that, before all of that, you come back. You return to this town, and her husband is angry. He's just lost his son, and you have a way to get him back. And he kills her. Milah, the woman you love, he rips her heart out. He crushes it to dust, and she dies in your arms. And for three hundred years you look for revenge." Killian couldn't breathe. The pale sky was melting into him, the ice in his heart freezing everything.

"To fix this timeline-" He gasped in shock, clutching his chest.

"She needs to die," Emma shook her head. Killian stood, the pieces clicking in his mind.

"You brought me here. You're here to convince me to take her with me." Emma stood as well, opening her mouth to talk. But he didn't want to listen. "You know! You know she'll die!" He dragged his hands back over his head, tears falling over his cheeks.

"Killian-!" Emma bit her lip as he cut her off.

"No! You brought me here to kill her! Or did that not occur to you? Did you not think? I-..." His voice broke. "She'll die if she leaves with me. She'll die."

"I know! I know, Killian! But how many people will die if she doesn't? We're all doomed otherwise. I am sending her to her death!" The tears she had been holding back all this time streamed down her face, lip trembling and hair clinging to her cheeks. "Do you think I don't know? I am killing her. But if I don't, someone- something else will. This will destroy you both." She wiped her tears away resignedly, face suddenly emotionless and eyes like steel. "I can only hope I can put you back together. If I don't do this, so many people will never exist." Killian tried to interrupt and she put her full weight behind her as she pushed him back. "I will never exist, Killian!" He stopped, eyes wide and face still. "My son will never exist!" She looked desperately up at him, then smiled wearily, seeing nothing but failure. "Never mind. Just- never mind."

She swung around, walking up the gangplank to the Jolly Roger.

Killian was still processing all of this when she turned back to shout something at him.

"She's a part of you! Without her, without her death, you will never be yourself!"

Emma spent the night curled up on a spare bed, wrapped in Killian's coat and breathing in the same smell that screamed of home. Of lazy days talking on the couch, of baking crappy birthday cakes and walking Henry to the bus stop. Of long nights spent just spent breathing each other in, of beanstalks and giants and sword fights and love.

She could almost forget. But he was a part of her, and she was helpless to that.

They avoided each other all of the next day. That night, however, Killian found himself face-to-face with Milah.

"Oh, hello again!" She was extraordinarily pleased to see him, and despite his wish to keep her alive, Emma's words kept echoing in his head.

They spoke of far-off lands and sea winds until her husband found her. Killain couldn't find any sympathy within himself for this man, one who'd eventually tear out the heart of a brave, adventurous woman. Who'd cause so much pain and death and destruction for the sake of his own heart.

And the minute Milah walked away with her son and husband, he knew what his decision would be.

He knew he'd find Emma aboard the ship. She liked it there, liked being high above the water, wind in her hair and salt in her eyes.

"Hello again." She looked down at him, surprised.

"Oh, so we're talking again now?" She smirked down at him tentatively. He gave her a fair smirk of his own, scrambling up the side of the ship to sit beside her.

"I just came to say goodbye," he managed finally. She swallowed, looking over at him. He kissed her.

It was different from the kiss they'd shared before, hesitant and gentle. This kiss was desperate and longing and pain and truth. When he pulled away, he held her face between his hands.

"I'm not used to this kind of responsibility," he said quietly. "I can take care of a ship and a crew, but that's it. I've never needed more. I've run from anything more. Been running all my life." He looked up, squinting at the gulls wheeling in the sun. He looked back at Emma. "But I love you. I love you more than I thought was possible to love, and I can't bear the idea that I could prevent your existence. That I could stop everything- everyone you love, from being. And I'm scared, so scared." Their hands twined, rebelling against both of their wills. "I might never see you again." She smiled, a single tear dropping off the side of her chin.

"Don't worry," she whispered, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "You will."

He looked up at her, and he knew she was right.

She watched from the harbor as he sailed away. The stars were lost in the crashing of the water, the wide sky studded with clouds. But when she closed her palm, she swore she could feel his fingers in hers.

She reached up to her necklace, and when the next wave fell upon the sand, she wasn't there to see. 


	5. Resolution

Part five: Resolution

Emma looked around, cars and streetlamps and shops looking odd to her now that she'd seen her parents' world for so long. Her fingers fiddled constantly with the necklace, useless now that she'd returned. She pulled a few quarters from her pocket and slipped them into a phone booth. The number was easy in her mind, and as the phone rang, she smiled.

"Hi," she greeted the person on the other end. "What day is it?"

When she hung up, she was satisfied. It was two days after she'd left, and everything was right with the world.

Which wasn't, strictly speaking, true. Not everything was right just yet. August was still weeping over Grace's dead body. Jefferson's hat was still stuck in Maleficent's castle, and his bones were woven into a great wall. David was dead and james alive, Snow married to an off-color nobleman.

Although all that was fixing itself.

Grace's body slowly shrank, until she was eleven again. She woke up from a good night's sleep in her bed. She made pancakes with her father. She almost remembered a man with brown eyes. She wanted to forget, though, so she did.

Jefferson found himself sprawled in the kitchen, hat in hand. He shook off the sleep and began to make pancake batter.

August woke up in a hotel room, limbs frozen in wood, eyes made of marble. There was the faintest little glint in the back of his mind, a red-headed woman, a pool of blood... but he had bigger things to worry about.

Snow and David woke up to the ring of a phone. They scrambled to put their clothes on, and then scrambled some eggs. David went to pick up Emma from the edge of town.

Henry woke up and wrote down a dream of nothingness, white walls and black floors and red curtains.

Twenty-nine years ago, in a corner of the forest, a pirate and a witch were making a deal.

"Listen, your grace, promise me that should anyone ask you to change the timeline, don't do it." Cora fixed him with keen eyes.

"Is that a threat?" Killian remembered the kind old woman with white hair and copper thread.

"It's a warning."

Three days ago, a witch and a crocodile were making a deal.

"You'll allow Milah to convince me to run away with her?" Rumplestiltskin looked down his nose at Cora. "Why?"

"SO that you can leave, live a normal life, all three of you. Far out of reach of the Ogre Wars, far from that pirate or any magic beans. You'll be a family. Happy. Together. Human."

Only time was winding back. Cora was forgetting her plan, remembering a promise instead. Rumplestiltskin was remembering a girl, a chipped cup.

A pirate in a hospital, and a woman yelling for someone to hide him.

Time stopped.

Then it ran forward.

One minute.

Two hours.

Three days.

"Hello, beautiful." Emma turned, finding Killian leaning in the doorway.

"Kil." She smiled, wide and brilliant and bright, and Killian thought he'dd never seen anything more beautiful. She launched herself at him, forgetting all dignity or caution.

"Miss me?" he chuckled, wrapping his arms around her, clutching her further to his chest. Breathing her in.

"You have no idea." She laughed, hands tangling in his hair.

"Oh don't I?" He breathed, pulling back to cradle her face between his hand and hook. She looked intp his eyes, and she knew he remembered everything. "Three hundred and thirty years, Emma. And then you have no clue who I am."

"Did you miss me?" She asked, smiling. He chuckled and shook his head.

"You have no idea." His smile faded. "I thought I'd run out of time. That I'd missed you." His thumb stroked down her cheek. She pulled him close again, hands gripping at his coat.

"We have all the time in the world," she whispered. "We're timeless."

He pulled back just far enough to kiss her.

Soundly.

The End. 


End file.
